A Half-Remembered Dream
by Nightstar Phoenix
Summary: [One-shot] {As part of "The Impossible Dream," but can be read on it's own} Rose receives a last visit from the Eleventh Doctor via Doomsday Hologram, and he says thank you at last. Not 11xRose. Mentions of OC Tyler twins. [Between "The Snowmen" and "The Bells of St. John."]


A/N: So this explains why they found Clara in "A Beautiful World." Also you get some Rose/11 feels... I'm not shipping them in this fic.

This ties in deeply with my fic "A Beautiful World," but it can definitely be read alone. So could the bits from "A Beautiful World" that connect to this," but if you want the full explaination of why Tentoo and Rose knew to watch for a Clara Oswald, here it is. For those of you who read this and liked it, the story continues/expands in "A Beautiful World" and "The Impossible Dream." (I was going to post this as a chapter of "A Beautiful World," but then I made a cover for it and I liked that and it would be wasted so I thought what the heck.)

This is post "The Snowmen" and pre "The Bells of St. John" for Eleven and uhh post-"Journey's End" for Rose and Tentoo, and the twins are about five. [For those of you coming out of my other fics, this is post "Love Is An Open Door" pre-"Fall With You" (TID), post-"A Beautiful World" (ABW).]

Disclaimer: I don't own the cast or setting, with the exception of the Tyler twins. The title is after a track from the fantasmagical score to _Inception_.

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><p>"Rose?"<p>

Rose looked up, startled, from the book she was reading. She was sitting in a chair in the bedroom, taking an opportunity to squeeze in a chapeter or two before it was time to put the twins to bed. Her husband was busy playing with them at the moment.

"Rose? Are you there?"

A shape was beginning to materialize before her. The only other time she'd seen that happen... No, it couldn't be...

"Rose?" This wasn't the voice that she knew.

She asked anyway, "Doctor?"

When the hologram fully materialized, she was sure his wasn't the Doctor she knew. He had a squarish chin, a flat nose, longer hair, and bright green eyes. He had a great big smile on his face when he saw Rose, though. He was also wearing a tux.

"Rose!" He said. "It's me, Rose, look, I regenerated, but it's still me!"

Rose set her book down and stood. She couldn't believe it. "Still not a ginger, then?" She teased.

He frowned. "No, not yet."

Rose giggled. It was him.

"Did I miss it?" The Doctor asked.

"Miss what?" Rose was confused.

"Your wedding," the Doctor clarified. "Or has it happened yet? What year is this?"

"Oh," Rose but her lip. "You did. Miss it. By several years."

The Doctor looked crestfallen. "I'm late _again_? How many years?"

Their conversation was interrupted by a cry from accross the flat from Rose's husband. "Oi! Don't sonic your brother!"

The Doctor's face changed to one of blissful amazement. "You have kids?"

Rose grinned. "Yeah. Twins."

"Twins!" The Doctor exclaimed. "What did you call them?"

"Jack and Donna," Rose said.

"Those are great names," he grinned like an idiot. "Jack and Donna Tyler."

"Are you alright?" Rose asked.

"What? Yes, yes, I'm fine," he was as bad a liar as she remembered.

"What's wrong?"

The Doctor pursed his lips, staring off into some point above Rose's head. "I... I made a mistake, Rose."

"What do you mean?" She asked, concerned.

"I lost my friends— my two best friends. And I gave up. That was wrong." he delivered this all to the point above Rose. "They all told me not to travel alone. So I didn't travel at all. I didn't want to put more lives in danger. I spent too much time thinking about what I lost and what I couldn't have and didn't act on what I could do. And I lost another friend, and it's my fault. She helped me see how wrong I've been and how much better I could be, and then I remembered you." he looked her in the eyes now, "And how I never really said thank you for doing that for me so long ago."

"So you decided to invite yourself to my wedding?" Rose tried to lighten the mood. She could tell he was hurting, could see the pain in those old, old eyes. He needed to laugh with her.

He smirked. "Well, I thought, maybe your Doctor would have liked me to pop up. He doesn't have any family here... But he has got you," he smiled for real. "And Jack and Donna."

"We sort of gathered the old gang together," Rose told him. "'Cept they don't know it's the old gang. Sarah Jane. Martha. Donna Noble."

"You've been gathering Companions?" He clarified.

Rose shrugged. "I guess."

"Could you... Could you find out what happened to a Rory and Amelia P– Williams?" He asked.

Rose's jaw dropped. "They live a couple floors down."

"What?" The Doctor blinked confusedly. "What are the odds of that happening?"

"Why, who are they?"

"They're– were– the Companions after Donna... Left." The Doctor explained. "What are they like? Do they have kids?"

"Yeah– Rory's a doctor, they have Melody, who's about two years older than the twins," Rose said.

"What's Melody like?"

"Rambunctious, spunky, very active," Rose described.

The Doctor smiled, meloncholy. "That's her."

"You know Mels too?"

The Doctor nodded, as if he knew a secret. "Under a different name. Tell him it's a spoiler. He might figure it out himself."

"How long do you have?" Rose asked, recalling the last time they had had a conversation via holograms through dimensions.

The Doctor checked a watch on the inside of his left wrist. "Not long."

"Oh."

"If your gathering Companions anyway, could you put on your radar a girl called Clara Oswin Oswald?" the Doctor requested.

"Yeah, sure," Rose agreed. Her eyes were tearing up. She didn't want them to. This wasn't a goodbye, not yet. "Anything."

The Doctor smiled sadly. "Rose Tyler. When I said that to you on that beach so many years ago, I never finished my sentance. Hopefully he has."

Rose nodded, "As often as he can."

"My only comfort was getting to speak your name one last time," the Doctor said. "One last time. Rose Tyler."

The tearsstarted running down her cheeks. "I love your bow tie," she laughed. Were those to be her last words to him? The Doctor, who had done so much for her, who had taken her to the farthest reaches of the universe, brought her family back together, given her the opportunity of a brand new life.

But the Doctor beamed at this. "Thank you."

And as he disappeared for the last time, they both knew he was saying thanks for more than just the compliment on his bow-tie.

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><p>AN: Come on guys somebody needed to compliment the bow tie at some point I mean really.

Yeah yeah it was a big deal for Ten to send that last message to Rose via supernova-crack-in-reality-whatever, but if you try to compare thsee two moments I raise to you a comparison between the early moments of "A Good Man Goes to War" and the act that got Tentoo banishéd to Pete's world in the first place, and the episodes "Father's Day" and "A Christmas Carol." Taking this and many more examples into account, this seems like the kind of flippant thing that Smelevenith King of Plotholes would do. This probably leads right into another rant for another time though.

But in honesty, what did you guys think of it? Too far fetched? Bad? Good? You tell me! Review!

And if I just caught you with this, the story continues in Pete's World in "A Beautiful World" and "The Impossible Dream"! Now that this is out, Clara will definitely be popping up in the former soon. Next stop, everywhere!

Thanks for your time!


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